18 Emaciated Pups Chained Outside A Church Can’t Contain Themselves When They See Their Rescuers

It’s not every day that Barking Mad Dog Rescue is contacted by Romania’s local city hall. The organization was asked to check out the yard of a church, where many dogs were reportedly kept.

Naturally, the rescue was surprised, but two volunteers were sent to take a look. What they found was quite unprecedented.

At the back of the church, a shocking 18 pups, incredibly thin and bony, were chained up to poles with short chains that prevented them from lying down and visibly dug into their necks. No water or food could be seen anywhere.

The pups were absolutely thrilled to see people and practically jumped over themselves trying to give the rescuers hugs. But how had they all ended up there?

As it turned out, the pups had been rescued by one of the church’s priests – and that priest had no idea how they needed to be cared for. The priest in question was asked what he fed them, and he said they were fed twice a week, on Monday and on Thursday.

The pups were obviously very hungry and attention starved. It wasn’t clear how the Barking Mad Dog Rescue shelter, which was already quite full, would be able to handle the dogs. But the rescuers knew they couldn’t leave the pups be. They gave them some water and food as they pondered their next move.

The rescue then decided to quickly start building new enclosures in their rescue so that all 18 pups could be saved. First, just six pups were brought to the shelter, with the remaining 12 being left plenty of food and water. Three days later, the enclosures were built, and all the dogs were taken in successfully.

Although each pup was skinny, starved, and suffering some medical issues, they were clearly simply happy to be around so many friendly faces. Glad to be finally free, all pups – now named Adena, Anton, Bao, Bingo, Bobby, Emely, Flocke, Gwendy, Liesel, Pepsi, Poldi, Saphira, Shima, and Walla, with some yet to be named, are set to make full recoveries and will soon be ready to go to forever homes.